Scot Huntington on February 9th, 2025:
Having the organ in the shop for a rehabilitation roughly to its 1934 condition has allowed some forensic examination which helped make a determination of what was done to the organ and when. The 1894 organ was blown by a water motor, the feed line still exists in the cellar-under the chamber. The organ was furnished with a Spencer Orgo-blo with a 5" static by H&H in 1934. The changes made by Hook in 1934 are as follows:
- pneumatic machines for pull-downs and stop action
- new drawknob console (61-note manuals, 32-note pedal) across the chancel from the original
- pressure raised to 3.5" (noted on c25 of the 4' Octave) and pitch raised to A440
- 61-note Gamba 8' on C and C# chests added to Great
- Pedal stops increased to 32-notes with offset chestlets
- Sw. 16' Bourdon placed in unit chest situated on top of the original toeboard; 1-12 on offset chest, unenclosed
- Vox Humana 8' on its own chest extending into a doghouse added on top of the swell box roof
- all Sw. 16, 8, 4 extended to 73 notes with octave extensions sited on a single chest attached to Swell box back wall
- Accordion motor added to operate Swell shades and pneumatic tremolo to the Swell
- Original wind system completely replaced; individual divisional reservoirs plus high-pressure action reservoir (no static reservoir), and metal windlines installed throughout. The resulting morass of floor-level equipment made the organ mechanisms nearly impossible to service and to get from one side of the organ to other you had to crawl over or under major wind lines.
- The reeds were returned to the factory for revoicing on the higher pressure and pitch with spurious new tongues and felt loads in the tenor and bass. The resulting tone is darker and less bright than the originals, and slower in speech.
- Two electric light bulbs were installed in the chamber for "lighting".
The new 1934 pipework was quite fine, but the rest of the 1934 work was very poorly done (except for the lovely oak drawknob console and shell unfortunately discarded when the Odell console was installed). While the 1934 console was lovely to look at, the internal works were sub-standard and it was inoperable by 1984.
At some point between 1894 and 1980, the facade stencilling was redone in tones of pale blue, but copying the original design and ornaments (1894 done in tertiary colors over a beige ground).
Database Manager on August 1st, 2017:
Updated by Scot Huntington, who maintains the organ.
Database Manager on October 30th, 2004:
Status Note: There 2001.